Look Who Stopped By

Sunday, January 03, 2010

Not a lot to report today.... still sick. I've had a sinus/upper respiratory infection since the day after Christmas and it doesn't appear to be going anywhere. I still got in my 15 minutes of exercise though. I focused on strength training which burned my muscles like heck but didn't put any strain on the breathing - which has been rather difficult thanks to the gobs of snot clogging up my face.

OH! There is some news.. Our new roommate moved in today. My old roommate lived here for just under a year and ended up moving for work. He only ended up being able to give two weeks notice though, which meant in addition to the drastic reduction of income from being laid off, I was also going to lose the $300 a month I got from him for rent.... just before rent was due. Thank God for craigslist.com though. I've found my last 4 roommates from that site and only 1 turned out to be a bad egg.

The new roomie is a girl, which I'm not 100% thrilled about but she's young and far from home so I have a feeling I'll end up taking more of a big sister frame of mind than an 'Oh God, girls are so annoying!' one. Here's hoping anyway.

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Today is January 2nd, 3 months since I was laid off from my job and I am for all intents and purposes still unemployed. The despair of being without a job is waning though. After submitting my resume to quite literally 100 plus job postings, I finally got offered a job. I'm just not due to start work until January 11th. Direct hire this time - no more temp gigs. Woohoo!

January 11th is also the day classes begin for the 2010 Spring Semester at University of South Alabama - where I have transferred and will be attending until completion of my degree. This change is the first major action I took to accomplish one of my major new goals - which is to get a degree in something I actually enjoy doing and can make a career of and work for myself doing.

I didn't spend my first post of the new year listing out all the things I planned on doing in 2010 so I'll cover a few of them now.

In no particular order:

Goal 1 is to stop drinking pop. When I moved to Michigan I stopped drinking pop and went almost 4 years without so much as a single Coke. Then I moved back south and well... It's time to kick that habit though once and for all.

Goal 2 is to exercise at least 15 minutes a day - Every Single Day. I know 15 minutes might seem minuscule but I've learned the hard way that setting up big goals is a sure fire way to pretty much guarantee failure - so this year I'm doing things right - baby steps people...

Goal 3 is to go 365 days without eating fast food. The only exception I'm allowing is Subway - even though you get it quickly, I'm not sure a deli sandwich can be lumped in with McDonald's or Taco Bell.

Goal 4 is to smile and laugh at least once Each Day. That may seem like a no brainer but sometimes stress can be a big fat downer and 2 or 3 days will go by and you realize you've not so much as cracked a grin in almost a week. Laughing releases endorphins - endorphins make you feel happy - ergo laughing is good. And I don't know about you but I've never seen anyone laugh without smiling as well.

Goal 5 is to create a vision board. I know several people who've made them and the idea is that having a constant visual of where you want your life to go helps facilitate your desire to actually take action to make sure you get there.

Goal 6 is to see possibility in every situation. This one may be a little hard sometimes. Trying to picture something good coming out of say - having a major repair on your car when you're unemployed and unemployment doesn't come close to paying the bills can seem pretty daunting, but that exact thing just happened to me and something positive did indeed come from it. And let me tell you - believing something good would come out of that from the beginning of the situation would have definitely changed the way I reacted and handled it.

Goal 7 is to let my family know how much I love them. The relationship between my family and I has, for the last several years, been somewhat stressed. A culmination of past events, hurt feelings, old grudges, difference of opinions and life styles have stretched the thin connection I have to my family even tighter and although many of those things may never change I'm tired of feeling like I'm on eggshells around them. We may never see eye to eye but we are family and maybe I'm getting soft in my old age but that's starting to mean something.

So those are some of the main goals I have for my life in 2010. Last year I would have had to list just one more to end on an even number, but being anal retentive and OCD is something I'm trying to make a little less of a priority this year.

Oh! I've also signed back up with Nablopomo this year so for January, at least, I've a goal to blog every day. So far So Good!!

Friday, January 01, 2010

In December 2008 I wrote a post saying - goodbye to 2008. I recapped the major events that happened in my life and mentioned a few things that I was looking forward to in the new year. I think this year shall be different. Instead of saying goodbye to the prior year and focusing on what was, I'm going to say HELLO to the new year and focus on what today will bring.

Now I'm not going to totally ignore 2008 - some really big things happened - and some of those things led to some of the fantasticness that 2009 promises to bring - and history has shown those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it - I'm just not going to focus on what was.

The big things.....

In March I began an intimate and emotional relationship - only the 2nd in my life - relationship that is. There have been some ups and downs and a lot of questions and what ifs, but we've been together 9 months now and over all things are pretty darn good.

On Wednesday, September 30th I was laid off from my job of 2 years. I found a temp job the very next week and thought things would be back to normal, but that job only lasted 2 and a half weeks and panic set it. Two months later I got another temp job and that one lasted a day and a half. Both assignments, ended for reasons that I still can't quite believe are even real, but I believe now more than ever that every thing - even bad things - truly happen for a reason.

The second temp job was at a company that designed websites and for the first time in many many years I was actually excited about the work I would be doing. That the job didn't last a full 2 days sucked, but that day and a half opened me up to possibilities of a future I'd never imagined.

In December, after 3 semesters, I withdrew from University of Mobile - where I'd planned on obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Leadership and Cultural Studies and enrolled at the University of South Alabama where I will instead be pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Graphic Design - with which I plan on realizing the dream on being my own boss - and owning my own business.

And last but most definitely not least - on May 7th my second niece Paisley was born - and I found that my fear of not being able to love another child as much as I love my niece Marley was unfounded. I absolutely adore them both and believe more and more that the love I've always felt inside and believed to be for a child of my own may just actually be meant for the two most beautiful and important little girls in my life.

So that's about it for recap. Lots of other things happened and lots of other lessons were learned but those are the big ones... the ones that stand out... the ones that when I look back in 10 years and try to remember what was special about 2009 will come to mind.

Yesterday is gone...
Tomorrow is yet to be.....
So instead of saying goodbye to 2009 I say Hello....
Hello To Today.